The Glory Increases...

The next day, the presence of the Lord was even more powerful than on Sunday. I began about 7 a.m. to iron my shirt, because I wanted to do things for God. I did not finish ironing my shirt until about 3 PM, because in between ironing the shirt, the glory of the Lord would fill the room and I would fall on the floor and worship Him.

John the Baptist said it so clearly in Matthew 3:11: "I baptize you in water for repentance, but after me will come one who is more powerful than I,. . ."

He is not equal to us, He is more powerful. That is why He cannot fit in our old patterns. That is why we cannot have an outpouring of His spirit on our lives and keep the same old wineskins. We have to have a change of wineskins before the Spirit can descend. If you are so taken with your ways and your patterns, and the Holy Spirit comes, it will break the old wineskins. But new wineskins are different because they stretch.

Matthew 3:11 continues, ". . .more powerful than I whose sandals I am not fit to carry." Now this is a promise: "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." So many people say, "Oh I received the Holy Spirit fifteen years ago". I believe that the Holy Spirit comes to our hearts when we receive Jesus. That is the beginning. His presence is with us. We could not be Christians without the Holy Spirit. But somehow we have managed to divide the baptism of the Holy Spirit from the fire of the Holy Spirit.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD...

I sensed waves of the Holy Spirit over my life those first few days, but my mind was not changed until the third day that I was under this fire of the Lord. That day, everything changed. I woke up and there was a sadness in my room. The same beautiful presence of God that was loving me and hugging me the day before, now was rejecting me and coming too strong, and dangerously close to me.

That morning, the holiness of God was so close and so strong in my room that I became very scared and I began to back up. I backed up until my back touched the wall, then I thought, "What am I doing? This is a spiritual presence of the Lord, I cannot hide from it." And I began to say, "Lord, please no more." That was the first time I had ever prayed that prayer. I was so scared I said, "Lord, I don't think I can take any more, You are too holy."

So I said, "Lord what is it? I know there is something wrong. Please have mercy on me, don't kill me here. That afternoon I went for a walk outside of the house. The power of God very suddenly came over me and threw me to my knees on the ground. It was so sudden and so unpredictable that I broke down in tears immediately. Then the Holy Spirit began to show me pictures of sin in my life--things that had been unresolved.

I was born and raised in a Christian home. Even as an infant, my parents used to read the Bible to me. My parents taught me in the ways of the Lord. But now God was dealing with what I had thought were "evangelical sins", things I had thought He would not mind. I had accepted a lie of the devil that we will always have a percentage of sin or evil in us; but now the Holy Spirit was resisting me. He was not hugging me.